EVWA Council Policy Paper 2: Enhancing Access to Resources For Women Smallholder Farmers

1

Policy Recommendations from the Elevating the Voices of
Women in Agriculture (EVWA) Council
Enhancing Access to Resources for Women
Smallholder Farmers: Recommendations from
the Elevating the Voices of Women in
Agriculture (EVWA) Council
In the year 2023, global food insecurity grew by
10%, driven by a combination of conflicts and
climate change. An estimated 238 million
people worldwide now face acute food
insecurity. 1 To curb this trend, we need to
empower smallholder farmers to enhance their
resilience and increase their yields. More
support is required especially for women
smallholder farmers, who grow the majority of
food crops in low- and middle-income
countries. Efforts must be made to close gender
productivity gaps; because women have more
difficulty accessing land, resources, and
leadership than men, their average yields per
acre are lower – in some cases up to 30
percent. 2
In the previous policy brief, the EVWA Council
provided recommendations to enhance
equitable access to land. This second brief
focuses on improving women smallholder
farmers’ access to resources, to grow their yields
and enhance their resilience.
This paper follows UN Women and ESCWA’s
definition of the concept ‘access and control
over resources’ 3 – see Box 1.
Resource access patterns and trends vary
greatly between and within countries. This
makes it impossible to create a universal
Box 1 – Definition of Access and Control
over Resources (UN Women, ESCWA)
Resources refers to means and goods, including
economic (household income) or productive
means (land, equipment, tools, work, credit);
political means (capability for leadership,
information and organization); and time.
Access and control have slightly different
meanings. Access refers to the ability to use and
benefit from specific resources (material,
financial, human, social, political, etc.) whereas
control over resources also entails being able to
make decisions over the use of that resource. For
example, women’s control over land means
that they can access land (use it), own land (can
be the legal titleholders), and make decisions
about whether to sell or rent the land. Access
and control over resources is a key element of
women’s empowerment, and by extension, the
achievement of gender equality.
hierarchy or select the most important
resources women smallholder farmers
everywhere require. Therefore, the Council
decided to use this brief as an opportunity to
‘zoom out’ and look at women smallholder
1
“Global Food Crises – mid-year update 2023:
hunger and malnutrition levels remain
alarmingly high,” EU Science Hub, European
Commission, accessed April 15, 2024,
https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrcnews-and-updates/global-food-crises-midyear-update-2023-2023-09-15_en
2
World Bank Group, “Gender Gaps in
Agriculture Productivity and Public Spending in
Nigeria,” Nigeria Gender Innovation Lab, 19
September 2023,
https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/
099091823113036874/pdf/P175095086510b00
1080e30d147463456d6.pdf
3
“Term: Access and control over resources,” SD
Glossary, UN ESCWA. Accessed April 15, 2024,
https://www.unescwa.org/sd-glossary/accessand-control-over-resources
1

farmers’ lives and food crop value chains on and
off the farm.
In discussions on access to resources, it is
important to consider intersectionality: a
smallholder farmer’s gender is not always the
main factor that determines their ability to
access the resources they need. Cultural factors,
education, geography, and wealth also play
important roles. In addition, though women on
average have lower access than men to almost
all types of resources almost everywhere, access
rates are often very low for both women and
men. For example, FAO survey results show that
in Ghana in 2017, the share of male farmers with
access to irrigation was slightly higher than that
of female farmers, but still below 3 percent. 4 We
therefore ideally need interventions that
support all smallholder farmers but are gender
transformative; that include a special focus on
women and advance gender equality overall.
Finally, it is important to remember that access
to resources is not binary. Many studies that
investigate the issue ask yes or no questions to
gauge farmers’ access to, for example, fertilizer.
They do not assess whether farmers have
enough fertilizer to meet their needs, or how
difficult, costly, or time-consuming it is to access
fertilizer. In addition, most studies investigate
household access to resources, differentiating
between male- and female-headed
households. Intra-household dynamics are not
considered, so that women smallholder farmers
in male-headed households remain invisible to
the statistics. Given the many variables that
influence access to resources, better data, and
in particular better sex-disaggregated data, is
needed.
Considering these complexities and the broad
nature of the issue at hand, the EVWA Council
has developed three ‘seedlings’ that may inspire
governments and other stakeholders as they
think through and act to advance women
smallholder farmers’ access to resources.
Seedling 1: Address buckets of needs
The first seedling proposes the definition of
three ‘Buckets of needs’ to guide interventions
to advance women smallholder farmers’ access
to resources: 1) directly farming-related
resources; 2) infrastructure; 3) knowledge,
agency and time. These buckets are useful as
they highlight the different types of resources
required by farmers. To build lasting resilience,
interventions are needed that address all three
buckets. The buckets also help to demonstrate
that women smallholder farmers’ lives must be
considered holistically, as their lives on and off
their farms are closely interwoven. For example,
unpaid household work is an important variable
influencing the success of female-led agribusinesses;
time poverty is one of the biggest
constraints on women smallholder farmers
developing new revenue streams.
Bucket 1. Directly farming-related
resources
These are what people tend to think of first
when discussing access to resources for
farmers: inputs such as improved seeds,
fertilizer, and tools, but also credit. Access to
credit remains low for both male and female
smallholder farmers, but getting loans is more
challenging for women as they are less likely to
be able to provide collateral, such as land. Tools
are often financially out of reach for women
farmers, but may also be physically unsuitable if
they have been designed for the average man.
Even when tools are designed to support work
primarily undertaken by women, women are
often not sufficiently engaged or consulted in
the design process.
Bucket 2. Infrastructure
The resources in this bucket tend to be
communal and require organisation rather than
empowerment of individual smallholder
farmers. They include energy and water
infrastructure, storage and processing facilities
4
FAO, The Status of Women in Agrifood
Systems. Rome. P.82.
https://doi.org/10.4060/cc5343en
2

to reduce post-harvest waste, and finally
transport and markets. Besides directly
supporting farming activities, resources such as
easily accessible water and energy are also very
important to free up women’s time for farming
activities by reducing workloads in the
household. It is important to remember that
even if communities have infrastructure in
place, women are still more likely to be
underserved. Their land may be further away
from water sources, 5 for example, or they may
not be able to benefit from electricity as they
lack access to appliances.
Bucket 3. Knowledge, agency, and time
The resources in this bucket are the least
tangible of all but serve as important multipliers
for interventions that enhance access to the
resources in the other buckets. If women
farmers can access education or extension
services, increase their decision-making
authority over their farms, and invest more time
in farming, their ability to access and effectively
use all other resources will improve. Examples of
interventions that address this bucket include
unlocking access to market information and
knowledge on prices, to help farmers make
smart choices for more lucrative products.
Stakeholders can also support women farmers
and their cooperatives to develop their business
and planning skills. Information services such as
weather forecasts can serve as a buffer against
uncertainties. Women’s agency and time are
more difficult to influence as these are often
determined by deeply ingrained cultural norms.
All stakeholders working with women
smallholder farmers should make sure at the
very least that they do not exacerbate women’s
time poverty, 6 and ideally find entry points to
advance gender equality more generally, at the
household and community levels.
Seedling 2: Strengthen value chains
This seedling provides an alternative way to
organise interventions to the ‘buckets’
described above. It proposes a focus on
resources required for post-harvest processing
and access to markets, as these are ultimately
the most important for growing incomes and
thereby resilience to climate change and other
shocks. The proposal is to focus on chains:
• Food crop value chains: Whereas value
chains for commodity crops 7 , primarily
grown and sold by men, tend to be welldeveloped
and formalised, value chains for
food crops 8 often are not, despite their
importance for food security. This leads to
underinvestment in food crop cultivation,
which is dominated by women farmers.
• ‘Resource needs chains’: For example, in
order to purchase machinery, women first
need to access credit. To access credit, they
need to build the financial literacy to write
good loan applications. They also need
access to markets so that they can generate
the income to repay the loan. Therefore,
interventions that provide access to
machinery without also addressing
financial literacy, access to markets and
access to credit are likely to be less effective
than those that consider resource needs
chains.
Ultimately, the goal is to help women regard
agriculture as a business rather than a
5
ActionAid International. What Women Farmers
Need: A Blueprint for Action. The Hague, 2011.
https://actionaid.org/sites/default/files/the_blu
e_print_for_women_farmers.pdf
6
E.g. Bain, Ransom and Halimatusa’diyah
(2018) found that though interventions that
provided women farmers in Uganda with dairy
cows led to higher incomes and enhanced
nutritional security, many women struggled to
combine care for their cows (especially
accessing enough clean water) with their other
duties. Bain, C., Ransom, E. and
Halimatusa’diyah, I., “Weak winners’ of
Women's empowerment: The gendered effects
of dairy livestock assets on time poverty in
Uganda,” Journal of Rural Studies, 61 (July
2018): pp.100-109.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2018.03.004
7
Commodity crops are crops primarily destined
for sale/export, such as coffee, tea, sugar cane,
cocoa, cotton, tobacco, etc.
8
Food crops are crops primarily destined for
local or regional consumption, such as
vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, etc.
3

subsistence activity. Experience has shown that
this mindset change can lead to better
decision-making and higher yields. Another
promising approach is to build more direct
linkages between women farmers and market
buyers, and make the value chain visible to
both. For example, LadyAgri connects womenled
SME buyers (e.g. shops, food businesses) to
women farmer cooperatives. Stakeholders
should analyse what else is needed to improve
access to markets (Better storage? Better
knowledge of when to store and when to sell?
Better transport?) and address these resource
needs as a priority.
Whereas the first seedling sought to bring focus
to women’s lives on and off their farms, this
seedling highlights women’s roles not only at
pre-harvest but also at post-harvest stages of
production, and seeks to empower women as
key economic actors. Women already
undertake the majority of primary sorting and
processing work for both food and commodity
crops. Adding value to local food crops can
bring visibility to the advantages of women’s
entrepreneurship and increase their access to
productive resources such as land. It will also
lead to greater food production and improved
food security. Finally, underlining women’s
value and contribution to community
wellbeing, nutrition and resilience builds
momentum to increase women’s access to
further resources and increase yields.
Seedling 3: Change the game
The third seedling pinpoints some potential
game changers that help women to tap into
new opportunities.
The first game changer identified is collective
action: when women work together, they are
able to unlock opportunities that are otherwise
inaccessible. Women’s savings groups have for
decades provided quick credit to women
smallholder farmers unable to access financing
elsewhere. However, the amounts they are able
to provide are not sufficient to facilitate climate
change adaptation or the purchase of
technology for agri-businesses, and new forms
of collaboration must be found.
Good examples include the LadyAgri Pépites
Programme in Guinea, 9 which builds womenowned
business clusters along agricultural
value chains. It has supported 200 SME’s,
connecting women across the rural-urban
divide, strengthening community sharing skills,
and building a strong network working under
the collective identity ‘Pépites'. Pépites as a
collective is a significant economic force, which
has managed to pique the interest of service
providers, the government, and the financial
sector in a way that individual farmers are
unable to.
Digital solutions can also change the game by
facilitating instant access to information,
connections, and organisation where this was
previously impossible, particularly for women in
rural areas. For example, the Digital Agriculture
for Accelerated and Inclusive Post-Covid 19
Recovery Project 10 in Laikipia County, Kenya,
increases access to and utilisation of digital
agricultural content for sustainable agriculture
and food security. The LadyAgri SAFAF
programme, co-financed by the European
Union, is a national food security programme
that helps women engage with the national
market information system, has established an
e-commerce platform, enhances access to
finance and builds farm-to-fork business
clusters along agricultural value chains. Another
example is the CGIAR Initiative on Digital
Innovation. This initiative simultaneously
addresses the supply and demand sides for
9
LadiAgri Investment Hub. LadyAgri Annual
Report 2021-2022. Accessed 18 April 2024,
https://assets-global.websitefiles.com/5e6519c2af4002071aa3e753/62bb01
3de08029250a1eada7_EN_Annual%20Report%
202022_compressed.pdf
10
The
African Centre for Women, Information and Co
mmunications Technology (ACWICT) is a Kenyabased
ICT for Development (ICT4D)
Organization, with a regional reach whose
mission is to promote women and youth access
to and knowledge of ICTs as tools. See “About
Us,” ACWICT, accessed 18 April 2024,
https://www.acwict.org/about-us/
4

agricultural information services aimed at
smallholder farmers. It undertakes research and
innovation efforts to develop improved,
gender-responsive information services, while
also supporting digital skills development
among smallholder farmers and enhanced
access to digital technologies and networks. 11 A
specific example of impact achieved is the
Initiative’s collaboration with Farm Radio
International (FRI), which supports over 700
radio shows in 40 African countries. To allow FRI
to provide more locally relevant information,
farmers can call in to a free number and record
responses to open-ended questions. However,
manually analysing the thousands of responses
received proved difficult and time consuming.
In response to this challenge, CGIAR and FRI
developed an automated system which uses
artificial intelligence to analyse voicemails
quickly and efficiently, thus unlocking a huge
repository of farmer’s knowledge and
perspectives. 12
be available to help grow their reach and
impact.
Conclusion
As this paper shows, access to resources for
women smallholder farmers is a large and
complex issue, the nuances of which vary
greatly between different countries,
communities and even households. During the
discussions in the EVWA Council, it became
evident that it is often the programmes that
provide intensive, personal, long-term
guidance to a small number of farmers that
manage to make a lasting difference. Such
projects do not only help women farmers
access all the resources along their ‘resource
needs chains’, but also support women’s
empowerment and gender equality overall. As
they require individual coaching and the
building of trust, they are difficult to scale
rapidly and therefore unlikely to make
headlines. However, new digital solutions may
11
“Initiative: Digital Innovation,” CGIAR
Research Initiatives, CGIAR. Accessed 18 April
2024. https://www.cgiar.org/initiative/digitalinnovation/?section=about.
12
“INITIATIVE RESULT: Artificial intelligence
enables extension services reaching 12 million
farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to respond to
farmers’ voices,” CGIAR Research Initiatives,
CGIAR. Accessed 18 April 2024,
https://www.cgiar.org/initiative-result/artificialintelligence-enables-extension-servicesreaching-12-million-farmers-in-sub-saharanafrica-to-respond-to-farmers-voices/.
5

Key resources on women’s access to Resources
The following literature was used in the preparation of the EVWA Council discussions and the
development of this paper:
ActionAid International. 2011. What Women Farmers Need: A Blueprint for Action. The Hague.
https://actionaid.org/sites/default/files/the_blue_print_for_women_farmers.pdf
Ajadi, A.A., Oladele, O.I., Ikegami, K. and Tsuruta, T., 2015. Rural women’s farmers access to productive
resources: the moderating effect of culture among Nupe and Yoruba in Nigeria. Agriculture &
Food Security (2015) 4:26. DOI 10.1186/s40066-015-0048-y
Anaglo, J.N., Boateng, S.D. and Boateng, C.A., 2014. Gender and Access to Agricultural Resources by
Smallholder Farmers in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Journal of Education and Practice 5:5.
Ankrah, D.A., Freeman, C.Y. and Afful, A., 2020. Scientific African 10.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sciaf.2020.e00604
Bain, C., Ransom, E., and Halimatusa'diyah, I., 2018. ‘Weak winners’ of Women's empowerment: The
gendered effects of dairy livestock assets on time poverty in Uganda. Journal of Rural Studies,
61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2018.03.004.
Dwomoh et al., 2023. Modeling inequality in access to agricultural productive resources and
socioeconomic determinants of household food security in Ghana: a cross‐sectional study.
Agricultural and Food Economics (2023) 11:24. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40100-023-00267-
6.
European Union Joint Research Centre, 2023. Global Food Crises – mid-year update 2023: hunger and
malnutrition levels remain alarmingly high. https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrcnews-and-updates/global-food-crises-mid-year-update-2023-2023-09-15_en
Fashogbon, A. E., Morrison, L.E., Sahay, A., and Vaillant, J., 2023. Gender Gaps in Agriculture Productivity
and Public Spending in Nigeria (English). Nigeria Gender Innovation Lab Washington, D.C.:
World Bank Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099091823113036874/
P175095086510b001080e30d147463456d6
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2023. The status of women in agrifood
systems. https://www.fao.org/3/cc5343en/cc5343en.pdf.
GSMA, 2022. Reaching and Empowering Women with Digital Solutions in the Agricultural Last Mile.
https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Agri-Womenin-Value-Chains-v5.pdf.
Murray, U., Gebremedhin, Z., Brychkova, G., Spillane, C., 2016. Smallholder farmers and climate smart
agriculture: technology and labor-productivity constraints amongst women smallholders in
Malawi. Gend. Technol. Dev. 20 (2), 117–148.
Njuki et al., 2022. A review of evidence on gender equality, women’s empowerment, and food systems.
Global Food Security 33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2022.100622.
Okolo, W., 2021. Optimizing Farm Systems Through Gender Inclusion: Leveraging agricultural service
delivery.
Pauw, K., 2021. A review of Ghana’s planting for food and jobs program: implementation, impacts,
benefits, and costs. Food Security (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-022-01287-8
Theriault, V., Smale, M., Haider, H., 2017. How does gender affect sustainable intensification of cereal
production in the West African Sahel? Evidence from Burkina Faso. World Dev. 92 (April), 177–
191.
6